It was a beautiful wedding! Meg looked glowingly in parts of her grandmother’s wedding dress.
Mrs. Throckmorton, Aunt Mae, Mrs. Hinton, and Emily sobbed all during the ceremony, especially when “Oh Promise Me” was sung.
Grandma Ida sat dry-eyed. She was sitting between Howie and his mother, wondering why Meg borrowed her dress, if she wasn’t going to wear it. The only thing similar about that one was the sleeves.
Emily and her parents were on the other side of Howie. And Aunt Mae was on the far side of her sister-in-law.
The church was beautifully decorated with bouquets of flowers. The air was filled with their sweet fragrance. As the last rays of the sun hit the stained glass window behind the pulpit, it bathed the happy couple in a rosy hue – a hopeful omen for their future.
Mike was
nervous. He whispered to Mr.
Throckmorton who was standing behind him that he had not been this nervous
since he wrote his first insurance policy.
“Think of a joke,”
Mike
managed to remain calm when the ring was asked for and he slipped it onto Meg’s
hand without dropping it. He sighed in
relief and thought of a knock-knock joke.
Blast Emily
for putting it in my head, Howie thought, as he looked at the minister. He did look like a baseball umpire! It did not help that the Reverend Johnson was
a large athletic man, who would look more at natural behind home plate, than
behind a pulpit. Or it could be that his
clerical collar resembled that of an umpire.
When the Reverend said, “I now pronounce you, Man and Wife,” Howie half
expected him to add, “Play ball!” Emily
would pay for this! He reached over and
pinched her on the arm, only to get an elbow jabbed back into his ribs. Emily glared at him over a wet tissue.
Everyone
stood as Meg, looking radiant in - some - of Grandma Ida’s old wedding dress,
marched down the aisle with her new husband, although it appeared that she was
favoring one leg.
Louise,
Aunt Mae, Easter, and Emily wiped the tears from their eyes as they followed
the newly wed couple out of the church, and into the reception hall that was
adjacent to it through a narrow hallway.
Grandma and Howie followed behind them.
Inside was
the wedding cake. On top of it, the
miniatures of the bride and groom were dancing.
The
reception hall was decorated as beautifully as the church, only instead of flowers;
it was draped in crepe paper. Silver and
white strands were intertwined and hung, stretching from the outer walls to the
center of the ceiling. They drooped in
the middle, giving the room the appearance of an elegant tent. In the center of the tent, at the very top,
was a mirror ball, a Styrofoam ball, covered with tiny mirrors that reflected
light as it rotated slowly in a circle.
It sent tiny beams of light, looking like thousands of shooting stars,
racing through the twilight of the hall, before escaping into the night to join
far away galaxies.
As darkness
fell outside, soft lamps along the side of the hall, and the shooting stars,
were the only lights in the room.
Everyone admired the beautiful effect!
Howie stood
trying to imagine it as a baseball stadium, during a night game. If the wedding cake was home plate, then the
refreshment table, loaded with sandwiches, peanuts, and mints would be the
visitor’s dugout by first base. On the
other side of the room, he imagined the bandstand to be the leftfield
bleachers. A combo was starting to warm
up out there.
Aunt Mae
was next to Howie and Emily, watching the band.
She said,” I wonder if they play Guy Lombardo.”
“Who is Guy
Lombardo?” Howie whispered to Emily. “And
what position does he play?”
“Guy
Lombardo is a band leader,” Emily replied.
“He’s the one who plays ‘Auld Lang Syne’ every New Years Eve. But you just keep thinking about baseball,”
she whispered back to him.
It would be
easier, Howie thought, if they served hotdogs.
He looked at the food on the table.
At least, they had peanuts. Next
to the table, a flowing fountain acted as combination waterfall and punch
bowl. Howie wished it was a water
cooler. Grandma Ida was over there
filling her plate.
The sides
of the hall could be foul lines, Howie decided.
And the base path would have to extend the entire length of the room, if
he was to get 90 feet between the cake and first base.
A reception
line was forming near the cake that doubled as home plate. Behind it, a lattice arch and a white picket
fence stood covered with ivy. Meg and
Mike were in front of the arch at the end of a line of potted plants the extended
along the picket fence. They were
receiving congratulations. Mike was
telling everyone that Meg was the best policy he had even taken out. Mr. and Mrs. Throckmorton stood on one side,
and the Reverend Johnson stood on the other side of the happy couple. Meg still appeared to be favoring one leg.
As soon as
he heard the combo warm up, Mr. Throckmorton decided it was time to start
dancing He grabbed Louise and off they
went, leaving Mike and Meg looking longingly after them. Unable to resist, they soon followed them,
leaving the Reverend Johnson to accept the best wishes of the guests.
Soon the
two couples were putting on a fantastic display of dancing skill, as a crowd
gathered around them, clapping time to the music, and cheering them on. First Harvey and Louise would do a step. And the crowd would cheer. Then Mike and Meg would top it; skillfully
improvise steps requiring only one good foot.
And the crowd would go wild. One
time Mike threw Meg into the air and caught her on the way day, swinging her by
her uninjured limb.
Someone in
the crowd said, “Look! Meg is wearing a
blue garter.” Embarrassed, Meg hopped
into her next step, while smoothing her gown back down.
Finally the
Reverend Johnson finished thanking the guests.
And other couples started dancing, too.
Grandma Ida ignored it all; she was back in the food line for seconds.
“The
wedding was so beautiful,” exclaimed Aunt Mae for the umpteenth time, as she
and Howie circled the dance floor.
“Yes, Aunt
Mae,” replied Howie out loud. Under his
breath, he whispered, “Circle the ball!
Two! Three!”
“And Meg looks so beautiful! It’s a shame she has that gimpy leg. I wonder what happened?” Aunt Mae asked, as
Meg with Mike hopped past them.
Howie
flushed, but did not answer. “Back up to
the warning track.” he said instead.
Aunt Mae
was a tall woman and strong from hard work on the farm. Howie was not sure which of them was doing
the leading, but so far no one had gotten hurt!
Howie jumped to avoid an imaginary tag.
“Oh,” said
Aunt Mae, “A new step, I like it.” The
next time around, she lifted Howie in the air herself. He hung there for a moment, with his feet
dancing in thin air. Then she put him
back down and they went on without missing a step. Maybe, Howie thought, after mentally
reviewing the dances he had learned, that move did not go with the waltz. Could it be to the bunny hop?
“You’re a wonderful waltzer,” Aunt Mae
enthused. “The best partner I have had
since I lost my Steven.” She sniffed
back a tear. “Most young people today
don’t take the time to learn these wonderful dances.”
“Scoop up a
ground ball,” Howie replied, bending low.
“Oh! A dip; you dipped me!” exclaimed Aunt Mae
with delight. “Do you know how to
polka? That was Steven’s and my favorite
dance.”
Without
waiting for a reply, Aunt Mae launched into a two-beat dance in the middle of a
three-beat song. On every other measure,
a different foot hit the floor. But
Howie didn’t notice. He was too busy running
the bases. Other couples on the floor
scurried out of the way as Howie and Aunt Mae came “around the horn”.
Left-handed
batters have two advantages in baseball.
One is that right field fences are generally closer than left field
fences, giving the batter a shorter distance to swing for a home run. The other is that a left-handed batter stands
closer to first base than a right-handed hitter, who stands in the batter’s box
on the other side of home plate. This is
because bases in baseball are run from right to left, in a counter clockwise
direction.
Howie and
Aunt Mae were experiencing a problem Emily had not anticipated. They were headed in the opposite direction of
the rest of the dancers, who were all circling the floor in the clockwise
direction. Howie to was crossing the
floor in the same direction as the base paths, which meant he and Aunt Mae,
were going against traffic. And they
were a hazard to everyone. The darkness
of the room made it impossible for the dancers to see a possible collision
until it was almost on top of them. The
rest of the dancers found themselves making sudden stops, U-turns, and jumps to
avoid them.
Maybe I was
wrong, thought Howie, as he watched the other dancers jump to safety. Maybe there is hopping in a waltz
At last the
waltz and polka came to an end, and Aunt Mae and Howie found themselves in
front of the home cake. Howie threw his
arms out and hollered “Safe!” Aunt Mae
grinned in delight. Reverend Johnson,
who was standing near by, watched them curiously. Howie still thought he looked like an
umpire. Maybe he should have made the
call.
“You are so sweet, Howie,” Mae said, after she
caught her breath, “to dance with me, when you could be spending time with that
pretty little friend of yours. What’s
her name – Emily?”
Emily
pretty? Yes, Howie thought, she was. But
she was a best friend, pretty wasn’t a requirement. He looked over at her standing near the foul
line…that is…the side of the dance floor.
She was in front of one of the lamps and it cast a soft glow around her
strawberry-blonde hair. She was wearing it
loose and parted in the middle, with bangs over her forehead. And she wore a green plastic clip pulling her
hair back over one ear. Pretty! She sparkled!
Diamonds couldn’t have looked better.
Maybe he’s try to say something nice about it later.
She was standing
next to another girl Howie knew to be a relative of Mike.
“Look,”
said Aunt Mae, “She’s waving to you.
What Emily
was doing was sending in signals at the start of a new dance. She patted the top of her head at the same time
she rubbed a circle on her belly. Then
she scratched on her nose and touched each arm twice. Last she pointed to bleachers – or rather, to
the bandstand. Grandma Ida paused in her
eating and watched her in amazement as she went through her gyrations. But Howie understood and nodded.
“That’s a
pretty green dress she’s wearing,” Mae continued, as they moved back onto the
dance floor. “It goes with her hair, and
brings out the hazel in her eyes.”
Howie
responded, “Take a long lead off first base.”
“A tango!”
Aunt Mae exclaimed. “Howie, I am
amazed! You can even tango!”
“Hurry back
and tag up before the pitcher throws over there,” replied Howie.
“One, two,
three, four, AND…Two, two, three, four, AND….” sang Mae, as they tangoed up and
down the base path, still going against the flow of dancers. Howie’s father, and mother, sister, and Mike,
danced past them. Meg was still doing
everything Mike was doing – backwards and on one foot.
With Howie
momentarily taken care of, Emily looked around.
It was hard to see much with the soft lighting. The girl she was standing next to was a
pretty. Emily smiled at her. They had been introduced; her name was Susan
Evans. She was a little older than Emily
and Mike’s cousin. Wait! Was she watching Howie? Did she want to dance with him? Hump!
She was too old for him! Why she
must be all of sixteen!
Emily’s
friend, Thelma, taught her how to calculate the proper age difference between a
boy and a girl. Thelma read it in a
magazine in her father’s grocery store.
She told Emily, in her soft southern drawl, “Take the boy’s age and
divide it in half. Then add seven years
to it. And that is the perfect age of
the girl for him.”
And it
worked! Thelma proved it to her. She took Howie’s age, nearly sixteen, and divided
it in half - which was almost eight.
Then Thelma added seven years to it, and that added up to nearly fifteen! It was good to finally have a use for math.
But what
happens next year, Emily wondered, when she is nearly sixteen, or when Howie
was seventy years old? Would he start
chasing young things in their mere forties?
Thelma told her it didn’t work that way.
According to the magazine, it was based on the age when couples get
together. “After that, it is up to the
girl to keep the boy interested. And
that shouldn’t be too hard, because boys were really such simple
creatures.” But that meant Emily did not
have much time to waste. She had to work
fast, because her sixteenth birthday was a little over a year away!
But that
meant this girl was too old for Howie. Just
to be safe, Emily decided she would help her find some nice boy about eighteen
to dance with. She began looking up and
down the foul line.
While she
was working on this, a change to swing music caught her unaware, and she lost
sight of Howie. She peered out onto the
dance floor trying to find him. It was
difficult to make out who was at the far end of the floor.
Wait! Over in that corner was a commotion. All the dancers were parting around one
couple going against the flow of traffic.
And that couple was still doing the tango!
Satisfied
that she had found Howie, Emily signaled and finally the tango switched. Then she returned to looking for a boy for
Susan. Emily didn’t notice Grandma Ida was
still watching her curiously.
Out on the
floor, Howie was now saying, “Turn a double play at second base. Remember to
follow through.”
“I love to
swing, Howie. You sure are good! I always worry that I am going to step on
somebody’s foot.”
“Thank you. Catch the ball over your right shoulder, turn
around throw it to first.”
“Oh, a
twirl! Howie, you twirled me! I haven’t had so much fun in years.”
Then the
music changed again. “I believe this is
the Twist. I know the words to this one. Howie looked over at Emily sending in
signals.
Grandma Ida
moved closer to get a good look at what Emily was doing. As she did so, she set her plate down on an
empty chair.
“Look,”
said Mae, “there is your pretty little friend waving to us again.”
“Dig in at
the batter’s box,” Howie replied.
“Come on,
baby,” Aunt Mae sang, “Let’s do the twist,” as several dancers hurried out of
their way.
“Around,
and around, and around,” muttered Howie.
Suddenly
the music stopped – right in the middle of the dance. This left several people with one foot still
in the air. Sheepishly they put their
feet down and looked around, self-consciously.
Meg, Mike, Louise, and Harvey were at the bandstand with the Reverend
Johnson, talking to the bandleader.
Grandma
went back for her plate, but she couldn’t find it. She thought she had left it where that couple
was sitting. She shrugged her shoulders
and went back to the table.
The
bandleader tapped the microphone to get everyone’s attention. Then he announced, “We’re going to have a
contest. We’ll play as series of
different dances and see who can do them the best. Reverend Johnson will be the judge; when he
taps a couple, and calls them out, they must leave the floor. The last couple dancing will be declared the
winners.”
Immediately
the band jumped into a lively jive number.
The Reverend started wandering up and down the dance floor, with his
hands behind his back, hunching over, and peering around everyone’s shoulder,
just like an umpire.
“Ball
one! Strike one! Ball one!
Strike one! Ball one! Strike one!”
Howie pointed his fingers in the air, doing his own imitation of an
umpire, while he jived. But he was
careful to shake only one leg at a time.
“Fred
Astaire, eat your heart out!” exclaimed his aunt, as they plowed through the
dancers, still going in the wrong direction.
Over on the
sidelines, Emily managed to flag down Ralph Sikes. He was eighteen! Ralph was a college student, who lived near
Emily and Howie on
Ralph was
pleased that Emily noticed him. He was
shy and felt awkward around girls. He
became even shyer when he saw the pretty girl next to Emily. He wished all evening to meet her. When the girl smiled at him, his knees went
weak. Emily had just finished
introducing them, when she heard the music stop and another commotion break out
on the dance floor.
A couple had
to stop to avoid Howie and Aunt Mae, and then they couldn’t start again because
of the dancers pressing behind them. Standing
still didn’t impress the Reverend, who tapped the unfortunate couple on a
shoulder, jerked his thumb over his shoulder, and yelled, “YOU’RE OUT!”
The man was
so incensed that he took a swing at Howie.
Fortunately, Howie was bending over to dust off home plate at the time. The man missed, tripped, and fell flat his
face. The Reverend reached down and hauled
the man up by back of his jacket and, after dusting him off, he said, “For
unsportsman-like conduct, hit the showers!”
With his head hung down, the man shuffled off the floor, with his wife
following behind him.
But when
the music started back up, Howie and Aunt Mae were the only ones able to
move. Everyone else was jammed!
For the
moment Howie and Aunt Mae were the only dancers on the floor. Everyone else just bunched closer and closer. Reverend Johnson was at a loss to know what
to do. He was used to tying the knot -
not untying them.
All the
while, the band kept playing. And the
knot got tighter!
Someone had
to do something, Emily finally decided! But
she needed a reason to go out on the floor.
Ralph Sikes had just gotten up the nerve to ask Susan Evans if she
wanted to dance, but before she could answer, Emily accepted instead. “I’d love to,” she answered. Then she grabbed his arm and dragged him onto
the floor, while he tried to explain that he was asking somebody else. Before Susan could object, they were gone.
At the back
of the logjam, Emily jived in a circle around Ralph pointing her fingers in the
air, while she examined the snarl of people.
“YIKES!” she said.
“That’s Sikes,”
replied Ralph. “Don’t you remember me? I’m Ralph Sikes! We used to play ball together, and we’ve been
neighbors for years.
The band
continued playing.
Ignoring
Ralph’s complaint, Emily reached cautiously into the knot and grabbed two pairs
of arms, extracting a man and a woman. Gently
she pushed them, counter clockwise, down the dance floor, where they returned
to jiving - after they introduced themselves.
They hadn’t been partners before.
Back in
front of the crowd, Howie and Aunt Mae were jiving in a circle, having the time
of their life, while keeping everyone else at bay.
Again Emily
reached in, extracted a couple, and sent them their other way, after
introducing them to each other. Ralph
stood peevishly behind her pointing his fingers in the air, jiving all by
himself. Back at the foul line, Susan
pouted. If Emily wasn’t going to dance
with Ralph, why didn’t she leave him for her use?
From the
front of the jam, Reverend Johnson began to see what Emily was doing and he
came back to help. He started extracting
couples, introducing them, and sending them on their way – counter clockwise.
Slowly the
dancers began to unraveled and head in the opposite direction; for the first
time that night, everyone was going in the same direction as Howie and his aunt. Whenever a couple showed any inclination to
head back in the other direction, the Reverend tagged them out.
Now the
judging began in earnest. Unfortunately
most of the couples were with partners they had never danced with before. As the contest went on, Emily tried to stick
as close to Howie as possible, so she could give him new signals, whenever the
dance changed. This was difficult, because,
whenever she stopped to signal Howie, she lost Ralph. The first time it happened, she looked around
and again yelled, “YIKES!”
“That’s Sikes!”
Ralph said indignantly, as he reappeared from behind two large dancers. One of them looked like he had sat in a plate
of food. “If you can’t remember who am
I, why’d you drag me out on the dance floor?”
Without
answering, Emily grabbed his hand, swung under his arm, and out the other side,
as if his disappearance and reappearance had been planned. The band played on, as both Susan and Ralph
continued to pout.
The crowd
was beginning to thin, as Reverend Johnson weeded out more and more couples. “I haven’t had so much fun,” he told Emily,
as she danced past him, “since I umpired baseball at the seminary!”
Mike and
Meg, and Mr. and Mrs. Throckmorton were still on the dance floor, doing
great. Only Mike was dancing with Louise,
while
No one gave
Howie and Aunt Mae a chance of winning.
But thanks to Emily’s timely signals, they were still in the
contest. Howie showed all the right
moves. For the foxtrot, he crept in to
cover a bunt. For the cha cha, he
stepped side-to-side to plug a hole up the middle. And for the jitterbug, he ran back and forth,
as if caught in a rundown between two bases.
Finally, for the bunny hop, he was able to do his jump over a low tag.
It was
during one of her pauses to signal Howie, that Emily and Ralph got tagged
out. They were caught not dancing and
they were forced to retreat to the foul line, where Ralph and Susan immediately
consoled each other and walked away in a huff.
It was down
to just three couples left on the floor: Mike and Mrs. Throckmorton, Meg and her
father, and Howie and Aunt Mae. With so
few people left on the floor, the hazard that Howie posed was lessened. Skilled dancers like the other four could
easily avoid one solitary couple. Maybe,”
Howie thought, “I am going to get through this okay.”
The band
started a new tune. “Listen, Howie,”
said Aunt Mae, “They are playing my
favorite. They’re doing the Chicken
Dance!”
Howie
stopped in dismay. Emily had not covered
this one and there was no signal she could send in. She ran out onto the dance floor, as the
Reverend Johnson was headed towards them, with his thumb extended. She whispered something in Howie’s ear.
Howie
looked at her in disbelief. “No!” he
said. “It can’t be.”
But Emily
insisted, “Just do it!”
Howie
turned back to his aunt and, with a look of total disbelief, he started
flapping his arms and chanting, “Pitcher’s got a rubber arm… Pitcher’s got a
rubber arm.” And he and Aunt Mae clucked
down the floor, before the Reverend could reach them.
“Howie, “
said his Aunt Mae, “You’re too much. Not
only can you dance, but you make up your own lyrics. Well, I’m never too old to learn.”
For the
rest of the dance they circled the floor, flapping their arms and hollering at
the top of their lungs - “Pitcher’s got a rubber arm… Pitcher’s got a rubber
arm.”
That was
too much for the other two couples, and they were caught, gawking, as the
Reverend tag them out.
“Whew,” his
aunt gasped, when the song ended, and she collapsed on a chair near the foul
line, holding the trophy she and Howie had won.
“I’m all worn out. Howie, I
cannot thank you enough for taking the time to dance with an old woman. I haven’t had this much fun in years. And you dance divinely, like all the
Throckmortons. Now you run off and dance
with that pretty little blonde-haired girl, who’s been waving at you all
evening.”
Howie
escaped to Emily, wiping his brow on the sleeve of his blue jacket. “Hi, Em.
How’re you enjoying the reception?”
“You were
wonderful, Howie!” Emily’s eyes sparkled and her grin was wide.” You looked like you’ve been dancing for
years.”
“Thanks to you. You put up with a lot to teach me. You’re not still sore, are you?”
“No,
Howie,” Emily giggled, “not anymore.”
“I feel a
little foolish asking this, but would you like to dance?”
“Oh Howie,
I’d love to - the waltz. You are safest
in a waltz, Howie.”
“But this
is a fast dance, Emily.”
“We’re
going to waltz, Howie.”
“Boy, you
look nice,” Howie said, as they reached the dance floor. “You are the prettiest girl here,” he added,
as he twirled her around. That surprised
them both, but he meant it.
Occasionally, he could not help looking up for a fly ball, but most he
looked at Emily. “I like your green
dress. I think green is my favorite
color. Did you know that?”
“No Howie,
I didn’t. I’ll be sure to wear it more
often.” That was encouraging. Howie noticed what she was wearing.
“Em,” said
Howie in dismay. “I thought you knew
me.”
“I’ll just
have to keep working on it,” she replied.
She would tell him later that his favorite color was blue.
When the
dance finished, Grandma Ida met them as they came off the floor.
“Howie, go
and get us something to drink, while I talked with your little friend here.”
“Yes,
Grandma.” said Howie obediently.
“It is a
pleasure to meet you, Grandma Ida,” Emily said.
“I have heard wonderful things about you.”
“Well, if
you heard them from Howie, maybe I believe you.
He is the only one with any brains in that family. But the pleasure is all mine, dear
child. You’re a clever girl. I saw you sending in signals to Howie. I knew what you were doing. I am a big fan of baseball. I like the Cleveland Indians.”
“Oh! I hoped no one would figure it out.” Emily was embarrassed.
“I don’t
think,” Grandma Ida chuckled. “But it
was easy for me. Before we were married,
I taught Howie’s grandfather, Horace, how to dance. The only thing he knew was working with
mules. So I used mule commands on
him. ‘Giddy-up’ for forward and then
‘Back’. ‘Gee’ meant turn to the right
side, and ‘Haw’ to the left. Then of
course, there was ‘Whoa’ to stop. We
danced through five complete songs, the first time we danced, before I figured
out to use that one. Those will get you all
around a dance floor! And he seemed to
understand them quite easily,” she added, smiling reminiscently.
“You taught him to dance by imitating a mule,”
Emily chuckled. “And you ended up
marrying him. How wonderful!” She sighed.
“Yes, it
was,” agreed Grandma Ida. “I loved him,
and we had a lot of good years together.
I hope Howie ends up marrying a clever girl like you someday.”
Emily
sighed again, “I hope so, too.
Someday! Tonight’s a good
start. He’s beginning to realize I’m a
girl. He said I was pretty, and you don’t
say that to just a best friend.” She
smiled.
“It takes
time,” Grandma Ida reassured her. “Men
are really such simple creatures. You
have to take advantage of all the opportunities.”
“I will,”
said Emily. “Tomorrow we may be back to
fighting over baseball - or some other dumb thing he does,” she said, as Howie
returned with the drinks. “But he’s
going to spend the rest of this evening - DANCING WITH EMILY.”